This year, I have decided to cancel Thanksgiving dinner at my house. I see little to be thankful for this year after seeing that the majority of Americans willfully chose fascism—including a lot of my family members.
Every year, I have been the cook. I do all the work and shoulder all the expense for not only my kids, but also a number of Trump supporting relatives who come over every year. Why should I go to such trouble for people who just knowing voted for a convicted felon and rapist? Who just voted to enact laws that could end up killing any female family member who gets pregnant and has a miscarriage? Who couldn’t be bothered to take a few minutes to do a little research and understand what Trump’s policies will mean for the economy—along with how this is going to increase the cost of living even more. They knowingly voted to once again tear families apart and put babies in cages and commit what will almost certainly be horrific human rights abuses against immigrants. They voted to make life harder for me and my daughters because based on their conveniently misogynistic and bigoted interpretation of the Bible.
No amount of reasoning can break through to somebody who refuses to be reasoned with. It’s not possible to break through lies and misinformation if a person wants to use their “belief” in those falsehoods in order to justify their desire to abuse and exploit others.
I am done being nice to people just because we are related. I have stopped talking to any of them, and will no longer be around when somebody wants a ride to the doctor or needs help managing their affairs because they can’t be bothered to figure out how to make do on their own—such as figuring out who to call if they need to return something they bought online, for example, or figure out how to replace the washer in a leaky kitchen faucet. Or any number of piddling things I am constantly being asked to help with. Let them figure it out themselves or hire somebody. I am tired of being at their beck and call, and yet, there have been many times when me and the kids needed help, and they were nowhere to be found.
Whenever the question of politics has come up in the past, it always resulted in an argument. I am done arguing—I have simply stopped answering phone calls and messages from them. I think gong no contact is the right choice. My life will be a little more peaceful.
I talked with my children about all of this, and they agree—it’s time to close ranks and keep to ourselves. They can come over on Thanksgiving and we can just have a normal meal and spend time together. Let the rest of the extended family do all that work and spend all that money on a big Thanksgiving dinner themselves!
We will also scale way back on Christmas this year too— it will also only be me and the kids. We have switched to survival mode (not that we weren’t pretty much already), before the crap really starts hitting the fan after Trump’s tariffs take effect, and the effects of deporting millions of farm workers raises the price of groceries.
I have some debts that will be paid off in January—I think I am going to avoid spending money on anything that is not absolutely necessary, except things like music therapy for my daughter with autism. I will likely grow a garden next year and start prepping for the hard economic times that are coming.
